Thursday, November 12, 2009

Modules 5/6 - Visual Ranking

Tonight, we explored the Visual Ranking Tool from Intel. We used it as a student, brainstormed how we could implement it in our own classroom and created and tested our own project using the tool. Now that you have had time to work with this tool, please answer the following:

Considering your test results, do you think you will keep this tool in your unit plan?

How do you see the use of the Visual Ranking Tool fitting in with the objectives and standards you are trying to target? To the overall plan or your unit?

How do you see the Visual Ranking Tool enhancing your students' higher-order thinking skills, as well as collaboration and communication in your classroom?

How can the use of this tool be implemented into other areas of your instruction?

What questions do you still have about this project's design, implementation, or assessment?

26 comments:

I will definitely keep visual ranking in my unit plan. I had students order ways human’s impact their environment (logging, farming, fishing, sewage, and waste from trash… etc.). I believe this activity is definitely applying the knowledge students gain from researching and having them justify their thinking. One social studies standard is to identify ways in which humans depend upon, adapt to and impact the Earth. This tool would help student to not only identify but justify human impact. Students would have to collaborate and agree on which impact was the most harmful and brainstorm the reason why one way is more harmful or less harmful. They would need to compare, contrast, and communicate in order to provide reasons that are supported by research.

Considering your test results, do you think you will keep this tool in your unit plan? Yes, definitely! My main goal is to make sure that I remember this tool and make it my new teaching "habbit"...something that comes naturally to mind when creating new lessons for my class.

Considering your test results, do you think you will keep this tool in your unit plan, Yes, I will keep this as a part of my unit plan. How do you see the use of the Visual Ranking Tool fitting in with the objectives and standards you are trying to target? The visual ranking tool will fit in with my standards because it allows students to look at organize their items and a plan in a natural disaster.To the overall plan or your unit? Yes, because the whole plan is about natural disasters.How do you see the Visual Ranking Tool enhancing your students' higher-order thinking skills, as well as collaboration and communication in your classroom? I think it will help students to think about the importance of items needed in a natural disaster but they will need to understand the impact of a natural disaster in order to organize items needed to be prepared for the disaster.How can the use of this tool be implemented into other areas of your instruction? Students can use this list in order to rank items in math to learn about graphs, favorite journal items or favorite something that they can then order.What questions do you still have about this project's design, implementation, or assessment? I am unsure how all of it is going to come together with the students because we have several different groups and subjects.

• Considering your test results, do you think you will keep this tool in your unit plan? • Yes, I think it gives them something to think about and bring in some of the things we have been learning.• How do you see the use of the Visual Ranking Tool fitting in with the objectives and standards you are trying to target? To the overall plan or your unit? • I think it gets the students to start the thinking process and talking about what their group thinks the rankings are.• How do you see the Visual Ranking Tool enhancing your students' higher-order thinking skills, as well as collaboration and communication in your classroom? • They will learn compromise and talking about how they can come to agreement.• How can the use of this tool be implemented into other areas of your instruction? • I can use the information that we are learning and get them to rank the importance of this information.• What questions do you still have about this project's design, implementation, or assessment? • I just have to use it more and be more comfortable with it.

Considering your test results, do you think you will keep this tool in your unit plan? Yes, we incorporated it as a intro and then as a piece that will be used to check understanding. It is easy to use and it is gives the students a real reason for discussion during our unit.

How do you see the use of the Visual Ranking Tool fitting in with the objectives and standards you are trying to target? To the overall plan or your unit? It doesn’t hit all of our standards, but it is great in that it requires the students to use their reasoning skills to problem solve.

How do you see the Visual Ranking Tool enhancing your students' higher-order thinking skills, as well as collaboration and communication in your classroom? We are requiring them to explain their reasoning for their placement, and because we are asking them to sort in the beginning and again in the end, I think it will help them to see their growth and really consider what they know about the topic.

How can the use of this tool be implemented into other areas of your instruction? I like it as a problem solving activity; I also thought it would be fun to give the students various problems and then have them order the steps to explain how they solve the problem.

What questions do you still have about this project's design, implementation, or assessment? Right now I am just concerned about how it will actually work in the class, are my directions good enough, will it be a smooth activity without lots of complication?

Visual Ranking Tool is a valuable instrument for our Unit. This tool would be good for keeping students engaged and on track and build communication skills and collaboration.We are looking for ways to have students from two different countries to be able to communicate their knowledge via this tool even though there may be a time zone difference and maybe even a language challenge thrown in.

I can see how the visual ranking tool would be very helpful in a Social Studies class. I wonder if it could be useful across curiculum and give students a perspective of the same era through art for example.

To Meodom:Wow, using this tool between two different countries! You really are taking this tool to a whole differnt level. Very exciting and good luck! How are you going to get in touch with students from another country? I've wanted to do this as well, but I just couldn't get around the logistics of actually finding students to communicate with.

I will keep this tool in my unit plan, but may adapt it into kidspiration so my young students can utilize visuals/pictures. My students will be thinking at higher levels because they will have to make decisions on what is more important to them, trees or paper? clean air or driving in a car? etc. Students will collaborate across grade levels, the older students assisting the younger students in using, interpreting, and oganizing thinking around the tool. Without pictures, it is difficult to implement this tool in multiple areas of instruction. I could use it in language and literacy development as an independent activity, ordering words (alphabetical, number words, ordinal positions). I don't really have questions about the plan, but I am anxious to put all the pieces together into one cohesive unit.

To Ms. Quarles, I love that your students will be using this tool in both the beginning and end. I believe it will provide an opportunity for students to see how opionions change and knowledge grows. I also agree that this tool engages students in reasoning and problem solving. Great job!

Yes, I would keep this in my unit plan. The students will get the opportunity to analyze important items and compare with other students. This will get the students discussion up too! They will have fun, and use this tool to analyze and rank ideas, items.

Considering your test results, do you think you will keep this tool in your unit plan? * Yes, definitely. I think this tool will allow for some valuable, real world discussions on how we impact the earth with our choices. Students will have to defend their answers, while also working cooperatively. How do you see the use of the Visual Ranking Tool fitting in with the objectives and standards you are trying to target? To the overall plan or your unit? * This tool is a great way to force students to use their problem solving skills. They need more opportunities to work on reasoning. How do you see the Visual Ranking Tool enhancing your students' higher-order thinking skills, as well as collaboration and communication in your classroom? *As we know, when students have to respond to, argue or defend more open ended questions, they are working at a higher level. The visual ranking tool is a great way for them to have to work through a problem with others. They may not agree with their teammates, but they will have to find ways to respectfully disagree. How can the use of this tool be implemented into other areas of your instruction? * I can see using this tool in various other subject areas. I plan on using it in math to display their understanding about various units of measure. I've thought about using it to work on ABC order to the third letter. Endless possibilities...

I definitely wish that there was a way to incorporate pictures into the tool. Your kiddos could definitely use that picture support... and so could lots of my 3rd graders. You'll have to let me know if you find a good way to use Kidspiration for visual ranking.

I agree that the tool leads to the higher thinking by having the students explain why they rank the different topics. This forces them to think about the ordering instead of just throwing it together to get it done.

I think that the visual ranking tool can be a very useful tool to use in the classroom. I also agree with Chantell in that getting into the habit of remembering the tool when writing lesson plans is the difficult part. I also like the way it aids students in communicating their thoughts and learning to agree to disagree when discussing how to rank things.